Trump Administration Will Dole Out Partial SNAP Benefits amid Democrat Government Shutdown

The Trump administration is expected to dole out partial Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits as they were not given at the beginning of the month due to Democrats refusing to reopen the government more than a dozen times.

Roughly 42 million food stamp recipients did not receive their benefit this month due to the ongoing government shutdown – the second longest in history, reaching 34 days on Monday.

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According to reports, the Trump administration plans to dole out partial benefits in the midst of the shutdown, telling a Rhode Island federal judge on Monday that it would “tap billions of dollars in contingency funds to pay 50% of the normal amount of SNAP benefits in November as the U.S. government shutdown persists,” NBC News reported:

The administration in a court filing told Judge Jack McConnell that it had declined the option he suggested to make full November payments for SNAP benefits by using at least $4 billion from the Child Nutrition Program, as well as from other unspecified funds.

Instead, the administration will use all of the $4.65 billion remaining from a contingency fund for SNAP appropriated by Congress for “November benefits that will be obligated to cover 50% of eligible households’ current allotments.”

More specifically, the Trump administration said it “will fulfill its obligation to expend the full amount of SNAP contingency funds today by generating the table required for States to calculate the benefits available for each eligible household in that State.”

As such, partial benefits will start going out, although the timing varies state by state.

The Trump administration also faced the option of using Child Nutrition Program funds to allocate the benefits, but USDA said the funds should remain available to “protect full operation of Child Nutrition Programs throughout the fiscal year, instead of being used for SNAP benefits.”

“Section 32 Child Nutrition Program funds are not a contingency fund for SNAP,” Patrick Penn, the USDA’s deputy undersecretary of the Food, Nutrition, and Consumer Services, said, according to NBC News.

He contended that using funds from the Child Nutrition program would leave an “unprecedented gap in Child Nutrition funding that Congress has never had to fill with annual appropriations.”

A warning on the U.S. Department of Agriculture website – which has appeared for several days – warns that Senate Democrats have voted more than a dozen times to keep the government shutdown and thereby not fund the food stamp program.

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